Rainforests and Reefs.

My last week has been spent away in Port Douglas, visiting the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef with my friend Niki. We only spent a couple of full days there, one at the rainforest and one at the reef.

I had a little time in Cairns wondering around the streets in the early morning waiting for Niki to arrive on her flight from Brisbane. I couldn't say that I was that impressed with the place. It was basically a town made for tourists with loads of shops and restaurants. Nothing really noteworthy as far as I could see and I was glad that I decided to stay in Port Douglas rather than Cairns.

The Daintree Rainforest was quite impressive from what I saw of it. We basically took a one-day trip around the area, visiting many sites such as Cape Tribulation, Mossman Gorge, the Daintree River where we saw wild crocodiles and the rainforest.

Here is a picture of one of the great trees in the rainforest. The temperature wasn't that hot but it was very humid adding to the atmosphere in the rainforest.

I would have preferred to go for much longer walks deep into the rainforest, but Niki wasn't so keen on walking and didn't have as much interest in the place. Maybe next time...

The following day we went out to the Barrier Reef. I was a little apprehensive about this trip as I'm not a confident swimmer and wasn't sure how I would react to not being able to stand when out on the reef and snorkelling.

Here you can see me all decked up in my smurf suit, read stinger suit but we all looked like smurfs in them. Fortunately I had a black one while some others had bright blue ones. It should protect against any box jellyfish in the reef. They said that there shouldn't be many there but we may encounter one if we were unlucky. They are one of the most poisonous animals on the planet and their tentacles can cause immense pain so I wasn't going to take any chances.

Can you see the nervous look in my face?

As usual once I got there I didn't have any problems in the swimming in the sea. I just jumped into the water and managed fine. What really helped was the 'noodle' float that they provide you, which is just a foam tube. It allows you to easily float on the surface without having to tread water all the time. Quite good for me seeing as I can't tread water for very long, I tend to sink quite quickly!

I would smile for the camera, but smiling while trying to breathe is quite tricky for me. A wave will have to do.

The reef really was an amazing place to see. From only about fifty metres from the back of the boat you could see bits of the Barrier Reef only a metre below you. The view was quite magical, so many different colours and amazing fish. Since Naheed used to keep some marine fish I knew a little about the different fishes there.

There were all sorts of species that I recognised from Naheed's marine tank and trips to the marine shops. I even saw a starfish and a few goby fishes which are fishes that sit on the sea bed. Some of the corals were absolutely massive and I was quite jealous of the divers that I could occasionally see below me that were much closer to them.

I'm in the background of this photo of one of the larger fish in the reef. If you clicked your fingers at the fish it would come up to you thinking that you had some food. I managed to stroke the fish that this point which was quite special.

I would have loved to spend more time at the reef. We had three thirty minute dives at different parts of the reef and I was dying to stay out as long as I could. This is somewhere that I'd love to come back to, and possibly learn to dive as well.

I would thoroughly recommend that anyone who visits Australia takes a trip to the Barrier Reef as it was something very special.